HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – Aug. 15, 2018 – The Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC)-developed Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) Battle Command System (IBCS) successfully demonstrated its ability to scale up and network across long distances during a recent U.S. Army-led test. The evaluation was conducted by U.S. Army soldiers over a five-week period with air and missile defense assets located at sites in New Mexico, Texas and Alabama.“The ability of IBCS to integrate sensors and shooters over a vast area and grow the single integrated air picture offers huge advantages to air defenders and the joint forces,” said Dan Verwiel, vice president and general manager, missile defense and protective systems, Northrop Grumman. “This was demonstrated using an operationally realistic equipment laydown across several states and showed how IBCS is truly a force multiplier.

The test required IBCS to virtually form an IAMD task force to defend four critical assets while tracking ‘red’ and ‘blue’ fighter aircraft, cruise missiles and tactical ballistic missiles. Multiple two-hour scenarios were run to check IBCS abilities, including: providing and managing a network to maintain voice, data and video connectivity; performing friend-or-foe identification of air objects and forming the single integrated air picture; and planning, executing and monitoring simulated threat engagements.

The test also included dynamically adding and removing nodes to confirm IBCS’ ability to self-configure as a mobile ad hoc network.

The IBCS-enabled enterprise system provides significant benefits over standalone, proprietary systems that merely ‘talk’ with each other. With IBCS, air and missile defense commanders can orchestrate forces over extensive distances using whatever means of communications that are available. Today, commanders are restricted by the proprietary and limited networks tied to the individual closed systems.

“Extensive testing has shown IBCS to be increasingly mature and its capabilities will be game-changers on the battlefield. IBCS delivers an unprecedented degree of integration to fill gaps in today’s air defenses while enabling multi-domain concepts such as affordably integrating unmanned or fifth generation fighter aircraft,” said Verwiel.

IBCS continues to validate the advantages of an open-systems, net-centric, enterprise approach to air and missile defense for getting capabilities to the warfighter that make a pivotal difference on the battlefield. Previous SCOE trials proved IBCS’ value for building a significantly more accurate integrated air picture and its effectiveness for countering electronic attacks.

The system has already demonstrated its ability to take out live targets, having conducted a successful intercept on its inaugural flight test and a more difficult “engage-on-remote” on its second flight test. During its third flight test, IBCS simultaneously intercepted two types of threats with two different interceptor types by providing command-and-control for sensors and weapons never designed to work with each other. Two more successful flight tests in support of the Indirect Fire Protection Capability were conducted with Sidewinder and Longbow Hellfire missiles. Both missiles were integrated into the system within a few short months.

IBCS is the central component of the Army’s future IAMD construct. The program is managed by the Army Program Executive Office for Missiles and Space, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.

Raytheon spokesman Mike Nachshen told Defense News that the company is entering the technology-maturation and risk-reduction phase of the program with a brand-new radar, rather than an upgraded Patriot radar.The capability was designed from the ground up using gallium nitride technology and a staring array, rather than a rotating one, to provide constant 360-degree coverage, according to Nachshen. The company has its own GaN foundry.

Raytheon expects to begin discussions with the Army over the next few weeks to determine how the radar’s performance will be evaluated, the timeline of the phase and how much the Army plans to invest.

There's a powerful substance called gallium nitride working inside many new technologies, from smart light bulbs and quick-charging cellphones to the lasers that read Blu-ray discs.

Also known as GaN, the semiconductor material boosts power in all kinds of devices. One application is the first missile to harness the power of GaN tech: GEM-T, short for the Patriot™ Guidance Enhanced Missile – Tactical Ballistic Missile. But not all GaN is created equal; the version in consumer products doesn’t hold an LED diode to what's in GEM-T. Raytheon has spent more than $300 million developing the latter kind for the defense sector.

GEM-T, a mainstay of the U.S. Army’s Patriot Air and Missile Defense system, is used against aircraft and tactical ballistic and cruise missiles. Now GEM-T is packing a GaN transmitter that never needs to be recertified over the 45-year life of the missile.

“Our GaN is what’s breathing new life into these transmitters,” said Christine Walsh, Raytheon program manager for an international Patriot program. “GEM-T has been the beneficiary of all those years of Raytheon’s work on GaN technology.”

Those years — nearly two decades — have been spent pushing the limits of power and efficiency of GaN in Raytheon’s Department of Defense-accredited Trusted Foundry, where high performance GaN amplifiers are made.

HOW IT WORKS

Transmitters connect the missile with the ground system, allowing it to control the weapon during flight. The GaN version in GEM-T uses solid state instead of the conventional traveling wave tube design, which requires a supply of parts and recertification to match the life of the missile. The new ones with GaN do not.

The new transmitter has the same form, fit and function as the old one. It’s also tough, doesn’t require additional cooling, and is ready to operate within seconds of powering up. That means that the GEM-T with the new GaN transmitter will continue to perform in the most demanding conditions.

According to Jason Rathbone, missile integrated product team lead for the Patriot product line, the tech is ready for the U.S. Army, and is affordable. “Today,” he said, “the legacy transmitters on the current GEM-T missiles need to be periodically rebuilt and recertified, so replacing the old one with the new solid-state transmitter is a smart move.”

PRODUCTION LINES ARE READY

Raytheon is ramping up production of the GEM-T missile under a number of international contracts. The new transmitter, which was designed to allow future innovations, is well on its way to completing its qualification programs and will be tested during an upcoming flight test.

This transmitter technology might also see additional testing in other missiles. The Army has indicated interest in replacing its entire inventory with these types of long-lasting transmitters, which have reduced recurring costs per unit by 36 percent in the GEM-T program.

Radars and missiles are just the beginning, as GaN technology also has the potential to replace any radio frequency application that requires high power and efficiency in a small space. That includes radio data links, active seekers and proximity fuzes. Advancements like the GEM-T transmitter are only the first.

The article does not appear to be accurate. The latest NDAA requires that the Army submit a proposal to fund a 360-degree sensor by 2023 or risk loosing nearly half of the funding the congress put into the program. The Army's response was to accelerate the timeline and move IOC to December, 2023 (which points to them attempting to comply with the FY19 NDAA which was recently signed into law). From what we know based on OEM statements over the last weeks and earlier, both Lockheed and Raytheon are working on a 360-degree sensor with Raytheon aiming for a non rotating array with multiple panels. There is no third OEM working on the TMRR sensor so that is a good indication on what proposals the Army is likely get get.

If the Army tinkers with the requirements significantly at this stage of the program, the Congress may just move the entire effort to the MDA which I think it has threatened to do in the past. Although a case can be made that with IFPC and Patriot married together, there will be 360-degree sensor and shooter coverage against a part of the threat, I think in the long term, given the hypersonic threat you would want that upper-lower tier, and lower-upper tier coverage in multiple sectors to cover a defended area. What the Army could do is, require a sensor to be operational by 2023 and 360-degree capability added over the next few years. That is not likely to go down well with Congress.

The Army has a new plan for the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor program that would accelerate initial fielding by four years to 2023, a revised schedule that addresses congressional concerns about the program and quickens competition between Lockheed Martin and Raytheon which were both tapped for the next phase of the Patriot radar modernization project.

Brig. Gen. Robert Rasch, program executive officer for missiles and space, said Army leaders also want LTAMDS, a radar that aims to give units a broader and deeper view of the battlespace than the current AN/MPQ-65A sensor system, to the field four years sooner than previously scheduled.

"The Army has asked us to go faster and Congress has asked us to go faster," he told reporters Oct. 10 at the Association of the United States Army’s annual conference. "And so we are looking at opportunities to do exactly that, to meet the congressional intent of having the capability out sooner than the program of record."

He declined to provide any specifics but added, "more information will be coming out on that very quickly. . . . Industry has been working hard, very well with us."

In December 2017, the Army approved an LTAMDS acquisition strategy that pegged initial operational capability in 2027. That date did not sit well with Congress.

The Fiscal Year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act includes a provision that would fence half of LTAMDS funding if the Army advances an acquisition strategy for a new 360-degree sensor system that proposes a target date for initial operational fielding after Dec. 31, 2023.

The Army has now reconsidered its 2027 fielding date.

In August, the Army "submitted a report to Congress . . . annotating we would pull the effort to the left to meet the congressional mandate to field by FY-23," Army spokeswoman Britney Walker told Inside Defense Oct. 12.

The Army in recent weeks tapped both Raytheon and Lockheed Martin to advance work on their respective LTAMDS proposals, according to company representatives. The selections were made with other transaction agreement rules, and the service has yet to finalize the terms or scope of the contracts, according to a source.

Both companies are proceeding into the technology maturation and risk reduction phase of the program, which requires multiple demonstrations to provide respective designs as the Army continues to refine its requirement for the Patriot radar replacement.

"We've worked with the U.S. Army for decades to address advancing threats with the latest technology," Tom Laliberty, vice president of Integrated Air and Missile Defense at Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems business, said in a statement. "Our expertise in the lower-tier air and missile defense domain, combined with our Gallium Nitride based sensor technology, allows us to offer the U.S. Army the radar they need, when they need it."

Lockheed Martin, which is angling to unseat Raytheon as the Patriot radar provider, is looking to draw on its extensive sensor portfolio as part of its LTAMDS offering.

"We're looking at all the radars," a Lockheed Martin spokesman said Oct. 9 at the AUSA convention, referring to the company's current radar programs such as Space Fence for the Air Force, the Long Range Discrimination Radar for the Missile Defense Agency and the AN/TPQ-53 radar. “What are the processes, the technologies [for those systems] and how do we apply that to the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor? . . . That's the discussion we're still having with the Army."

“The LTAMDS requirements we are working off today are far more challenging to accomplish than what we had originally back in 2014,” Bob Kelley, a senior manager at Raytheon IDS, told Jane’s on 9 October at the annual Association of the United States Army (AUSA) symposium in Washington, DC.

“Back in 2014, for affordability purposes, and really for speed purposes, we looked at a Patriot upgrade to be the LTAMDS solution,” he noted. “But given the requirements we have today, a Patriot upgrade can absolutely not be the solution.”

Raytheon has developed a prototype that might appear to look like a Patriot radar on the outside, but on the inside it has the workings of the new radar the company is going to bring forward. Raytheon has logged more than 3,000 hours on that prototype, running on a test range to rack commercial air traffic. Kelley said the company brought in the Massachusetts Air National Guard who flew fighter jets in very stressing profiles to enable the radar to collect data on the engagement.

Kelley said while Raytheon is leveraging lessons learned out of Patriot for its LTAMDS effort it is actually leveraging more out of other radar programmes such as the SPY-6 radar for the US Navy, the Three-Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range Radar (3DELRR) for the US Air Force, and the AN/TPY-2 radar for the US Missile Defense Agency. A common theme among those three radars is the use of active electronically scanned arrays and gallium nitride transmit and receive modules.

Often, Kelley said, he is asked if Raytheon will pursue a rotating or starring radar. As Raytheon looked at the problem and the threat set soldiers face the company felt confident that it must be a starring radar.

A rotating radar, when it is not looking at the target, is predicting where that target is going to be for the next rotation around, he said.

“These threats are very high velocity and manoeuvering, it may not be where you thought it was going to be and if it is not, you just lost all the history. You might see it again, but you will pick it up as a brand new track and you are going to start that whole kill chain process [over],” Kelley said.

Rotating radars work well, Kelley noted. In fact, Raytheon’s 3DELRR is a rotating radar. The problem arises when soldiers have to deal with the intense threats peer nations have already demonstrated such as an attack on location with multiple threats, from 360° degrees, and the ability to mount an attack quickly and put threats on location in a very short period of time, overwhelming the radars and the operators manning the radars.

“You have to have simultaneous 360° with the ability to process through that whole kill chain on multiple targets simultaneously,” Kelley said. “In our studies we just didn't see how a rotator could be successful in this mission area, so we elected to go with a starring radar.”